Subject: Places, People, the Past (not about birds!)
Date: May 19 13:07:43 2000
From: NJPharris at aol.com - NJPharris at aol.com


In a message dated 5/19/00 12:09:49 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
ishriver at u.washington.edu writes:

> I think it can, though, and in some places has. And I do believe strongly
> that names based in local understandings of place (instead of names
> belonging to people who never actually visited the place -- e.g. "Queen
> Charlotte Islands") are a LOT more effective in getting people to commit
> to their place (which a lot of birders would like to see happen!). I
> think we should at least try.

OK, so what are we going to do about "Washington"? (grin)


> I disagree with you here. I'm Czech, Scots-Irish, Swiss, and Prussian,
> and like you, I don't think of myself as particularly hyphenated.

I personally like being Norwegian, English, German, Danish, and Scotch-Irish;
I like that my ancestry includes Yankees and Crackers dating back to the 17th
century as well as immigrants from as late as 1902. It gives me a history, a
culture, something to hold on to to avoid getting lost in the anonymous sea
of "white Americans".

And I generally think of myself as Cascadian (and North American) before
"American".

My two copper-coated zinc discs impressed with the likeness of a dead
president on one side and with the likeness of a building erected in honor of
that same dead president on the other.

Nick Pharris
Olympia, WA
NJPharris at aol.com